Roy - not sure Zaerc meant you can't have static IPs, of course you can .... I think the point was that doing so bypasses an important element in the autodiscovery process (and therefore the autoconfig process for media devices)

One note in favour of using DHCP is that once LinuxMCE assigns an IP to a file server, it binds the MAC address to a fixed IP address (see the group section in dhcpd.conf), so for all practicable purposes the server's address is static (at least until you change NIC cards).

Also the OP's addresses are .2, & .3, which are not in the lease pool range so are perfectly fine addresses, provided that LinuxMCE knows about them.

That is the real key: LinuxMCE must know about all systems on the internal lan, preferably by DHCP, but perfectly acceptable to manually add via pluto-admin.

Sorry for the digression as I doubt that using static IPs is MANDINGO's problem.

Well just for Sh-ts and giggles i decided that im gonna redo my core and set my storage boxes to auto on the nics, do i feel if this is gonna fix my problem, no but to rule out any config issues im gonna do that, also gonna disable the second nics in the storage boxes as so the only network that its connected to is the lmce. Ill post back when im done long story short i will have 2 xp machines with sharing enabled connected via gigabit to the internal of the core with mds on the internal all set to auto config on nics, Oh and just so i understand correctly when the file server is detected and i go under devices and look at the shares the disk online box should be checked, thats gonna be the first thing i look for !!!!! here goes

Yes, the check box indicates the status as LMCE sees it, but if unticked you can tick it and it will try to force back on line - usually takes a few seconds to fail if it is going to, so keep hitting refresh.

If you find the tickbox keeps unticking itself, go to a terminal or KDE desktop and try navigating to /home/public/data/audio/Windows Share <name> look for your media and try to play some. Sounds strange, but under some circumstances the media is perfectly visible and playable to KDE desktop, but not in the media grid in LMCE. Incidentally, in those circumstances the media is still findable and playable in LMCE using the Search function rather than browsing the media grid. I have found this in the past related to the smbfs/cifs issue. Sounds like that isn't an issue for you, but worth a try esp as I was getting the CIFS error -11 as well (but not the others you mentioned)

If the autodetect process does not prompt you for username and password for your shares (use the LMCE structure BTW!) then enter them in the web admin - personally I put them in both the server and share objects to be sure!

Try enabling security logging on your XP boxes and look for successful and failed security audit events - these will tell you which account LMCE is trying to use and whether it is the username or password or something else that is causing a failure. Let me know if you need to know how to do this.

Get a known good cat5 cable (seriously, go to the store and buy a cat6 patch lead and move one of the XP boxes next to the core) and connect the core directly to the XP box with no switch - modern NICs shouldn't require you to use a cross over for this. This will eliminate your cabling and switch, which can often cause errors, drops, autoneg probs, etc.

Get a new NIC card that is listed in the wiki as good for LMCE and put that in the core - try that instead in case of driver issues...

One note in favour of using DHCP is that once LinuxMCE assigns an IP to a file server, it binds the MAC address to a fixed IP address (see the group section in dhcpd.conf), so for all practicable purposes the server's address is static (at least until you change NIC cards).

Also the OP's addresses are .2, & .3, which are not in the lease pool range so are perfectly fine addresses, provided that LinuxMCE knows about them.

That is the real key: LinuxMCE must know about all systems on the internal lan, preferably by DHCP, but perfectly acceptable to manually add via pluto-admin.

Sorry for the digression as I doubt that using static IPs is MANDINGO's problem.

HTH,Roy

Please don't give advice on things you don't understand. The addresses 192.168.80.2-128 have been reserved for MDs, and as such should NEVER be configured manually, unless you have at least changed some of the settings shown below.

rodercot

Not sure if this helps the cause at all, but I was playing around this morning and I tried to set the EXT (eth0) nic to use a static IP from my router and upon reboot I lost the contents of my shares. my shares at a top level (/public/data/other/windows share-disk1 etc but nothing below that) were still in the system although slow to access them but I could not see the contents any longer. I just did a fresh install and all is fine again.

Also when I did this and after the reboot I was seeing a ton of CIFS errors as well.

Please don't give advice on things you don't understand. The addresses 192.168.80.2-128 have been reserved for MDs, and as such should NEVER be configured manually, unless you have at least changed some of the settings shown below.

I think we just found a bug then. Take a look at:

So what I'm seeing in the above is everywhere it says "Device" should be changed to "non-MD-Device", or "Almost a Device", or "Not really a device Device".

Seriously, the bug is that when static devices are added, their IPs are not being added to /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf. It's an easy enough one to fix. Here is a sample script that will add static machines in the database to dhcpd.conf:

Please don't give advice on things you don't understand. The addresses 192.168.80.2-128 have been reserved for MDs, and as such should NEVER be configured manually, unless you have at least changed some of the settings shown below.

I think we just found a bug then. Take a look at:

So what I'm seeing in the above is everywhere it says "Device" should be changed to "non-MD-Device", or "Almost a Device", or "Not really a device Device".

Seriously, the bug is that when static devices are added, their IPs are not being added to /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf. It's an easy enough one to fix. Here is a sample script that will add static machines in the database to dhcpd.conf:

Ok well after redoing a clean install of Quick DVD 710 rc2 to the core and connecting it directly to one of my storage boxes, the storage box was detected with no problem, The only difference was that i did not manually assign the ip address for the nic on the storage box and set it to auto obtain instead. Now when i sync with media sync it does find media and still reports the disks as being of line and the check box under devices still is not check for disk online !!!!!! But the media is still seen and can be played, gonna connect all mds and do a few reboot to see if the media gets dropped...

Yep media is dropped and i get the cif error messages when i dmesg on the core, shares are being dropped i have to click disk online and quick reload to see media at mds. Clean core NO CHANGES WHERE MADE just connected the internal lan. Now where do i go from here ?

Just for completeness - go to the a share in web admin and change it from cifs to smbfs, click Save, the check the online box and save again. Wait at least 10 seconds and then refresh the screen (NO reloads) - is the box still checked?